Luke Evans has starred in The Hobbit Trilogy, Dracula Untold, several Fast & Furious movies and many more. Luke is back in action with Weekend in Taipei which hits theatres this week. He stopped by to chat with me about the film.
Hi Luke, how are you doing today?
Hi Eoin. I’m good. How are you?
Good, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today.
My pleasure.
I really enjoyed Weekend in Taipei; one of my top action movies of the year.
Oh, really? That’s Awesome. Thanks very much.
One of my favourite moments is that opening kitchen fight, which is just crazy. Can you talk a little bit about putting that together and what kind of training you had to go through for the role?
Yeah, well, I remember when I got the job, George was like, “you have to come to Taipei early. You need to firstly acclimatize to the time zone, the temperature, the language, and then you need to go and spend two or three weeks in the rehearsal room with the stunt team”.
The stunt coordinator, he’s worked with, he’s done all of the Luc Besson action sequences and fight sequences for decades. So, I knew I was in very good hands. I’d obviously worked with him before because I did a movie with Luc Besson a few years ago called Anna, so I was introduced to him there. So, he was in charge of the stunt coordination and then we had a Taiwanese stunt team as well and then a translator. So, it was a very busy room and we all had the same idea that John, my character, isn’t a trained fighter. He’s not a martial artist.
He’ll do whatever he needs to do to get out of a fight. He’ll fight his way out using whatever he can. So, there’s a lot of character to my fighting in that restaurant kitchen sequence and I love that because you see a real man, you see a real human being just utilizing anything he has to hand to defend himself and it’s very entertaining and I love the music that they put over it. I thought it came out really, really well and we shot it over like two or three days without spoiling it for the viewers. There’s a climax to this fight sequence which is quite epic as well.
Absolutely, yeah. In general, do you like to try and do as many of your own stunts as possible?
Yeah, for as long as I can, I will. I think it’s part of the enjoyment of taking on these roles I think is to try and do it as much as you can yourself. I always learn something new. I mean, all the fighting, I do like probably 95% of what you see in the film is me. It takes a lot of commitment, and you have to stay fit and you have to sleep well and eat well and memorize all the fight choreography and then replicate it over and over and over, because obviously on film you don’t do it once. You do it 20, 30 times in different angles and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I enjoy doing it. I’ve done a lot of it over the years and I’m still enjoying it. I’m not getting any younger, but I think there’s a few years left in me and as long as I am enjoying it, then I will.
You mentioned filming in Taipei. How did you find it there?
Oh, I loved it. It was just from the second we got off the plane, everybody was really, really charming. The food was great. Culturally, it’s very, very different to anywhere else I’ve ever been, but we loved it. I mean, I’m the kind of person, on my days off, I don’t stay in bed watching the TV. I get up and go out and discover things. So, we would make plans. We did bus trips. We toured. We went to the coast. We just did lots of things that you’d only be able to do in Taipei. So, I went to the top of Taipei 101, for example, had dinner there and, went to the night markets and tasted all the different delicacies of Taiwanese culture, food culture. So, yeah, it was really, really lovely. And everybody was so gracious. I’ve got very good memories of my time there.
How did you find working with George as a director?
He was wonderful. Yeah. George is a charming man. He brings a good energy to set. He knows what he wants. He has a very clear agenda. It’s a collaborative experience. We all enjoyed it. It was a fun shoot. I think you get that from the story. I always felt like my enjoyment of watching this film reminded me of my enjoyment of watching Bruce Willis in the Die Hard films. There was a slight tongue-in-cheek edge to everything he did, and I resonated with that. And that energy came to set. Obviously, some of the sequences are very serious and explosive and all that stuff. But yeah, he was great. He just brought a nice energy to set, and that’s what it’s about. We’re there to enjoy ourselves as much as to deliver an entertaining piece of movie.
Well, you did just that. Thank you very much for taking the time to chat about the movie and best of luck with it.
Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye.
Ketchup Entertainment will release WEEKEND IN TAIPEI in theaters November 8, 2024